by A. R. Wise
A gunshot rang out the moment I turned the corner beside the truck to chase him. He’d paused at the end of the row, certain I would follow, and took an errant shot that whizzed past my head. I ducked back in cover and chastised myself for my rashness. I had to assume this man was at least as well trained as I was.
I looked over at the wheel well of the truck beside me to see what he’d been doing. There was a bomb there, although he hadn’t had a chance to set it.
“Ben!” a voice called out to me from the rehab center.
I held my hand out to stop them and said, “Get back inside. Someone planted bombs out here. Get everyone to the back of the building.” Just because this bomb hadn’t been armed didn’t mean there weren’t others that had been.
There was no time to waste. I was already hampered with too many injuries to count as it was. I needed to move fast if I was going to catch my brother. I glanced back out from my cover, and saw that his tracks led up over a hill and out into the forest. I chased after him, aware that he could be planning to take another shot at me as soon as I made it to the top of the hill.
I wondered if this brother had the same name as me. I decided it was worth the risk and yelled out, “Ben, stop!” There was no answer.
The pines beyond the hill were decorated with snow, their branches leaning down from the weight. I listened as the flakes struck the snow around me, but that was the only sound the forest gave up. I eased myself to the crest of the hill, and peeked over to see where his tracks led. He’d fled into the woods, far enough that I was at least certain he would have a hard time getting an accurate shot if he’d planned on sniping me.
I followed his tracks as they wound through the trees. The branches of most of the pines were too low to pass under, but the forest was dotted with other deciduous varieties that had only begun to sprout new leaves, and my brother’s path clung close to them. I realized why when I found a spot of blood beside one of his tracks. Apparently my aim had been better than his, and he was walking wounded ahead of me somewhere.
His trail led up another hill, and the droplets of blood were becoming more frequent, leaving deeper dents in the gathering snow. It felt like I was a hunter following a deer that I’d shot but not felled. I followed the tracks up a hill where they went under a tree and down the other side. I slowed before reaching the top of the hill, wary of getting shot at again, when something plopped down in the snow beside me. I assumed it was just a heavy bit of snow falling from a branch above, but I glanced down instinctually when I heard the noise and saw a new red indentation there.
It was blood.
I realized my mistake just as the sound of cracking branches assured me that I was being attacked. I braced myself, but was still knocked to the ground as my twin drove his full weight into me. I was knocked to the ground, my face pressed down past the snow to the earth, as my attacker put a gun to the back of my head.
“Bad form, brother,” he said. “Are there more coming?”
“I hope so,” I said after trying and failing to get free.
“Quit fighting me,” he said before slamming the butt of his pistol against the side of my head, just behind my ear. “I could’ve killed you from up there.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because we’re brothers. You know that. You called my name, although no one calls me that anymore.”
“Ben,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s right. Ben Watanabe, assassin on the prowl, roaming the world in search of my next victim. Did they give you the files too? And the backpack of supplies?”
“Yes.”
He chuckled and said, “Yep, same for me. Where’d they dump you off at?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where was the first place that you started thinking for yourself?”
“I don’t know,” I said as my face stung from the bitterly cold snow that melted beneath it.
“Think back to the very first time when you did something that was uncharacteristic for you. We’ve all got it. All of us had a point where we started to do something that we knew we shouldn’t, but we did it anyways. For me, I met this girl in Fort Denver, and fell head over heels for her. She was just a hooker, and didn’t give two shits about me. But man, I loved her so much. I cried when she left me in the morning. Cried like a little fucking baby.”
“I saved a dog,” I said as I recalled first meeting Stubs.
“A dog? For real? Well isn’t that something? At least I was getting laid.” He took my gun and then searched for other weapons. He poked around at my waist and then asked, “No knife?”
“No, I lost it.”
“Lost your knife?” He asked as if I was pathetic. “Can you imagine how pissed Dad would be at you if he knew you lost your knife?”
I had no answer. I was distraught by the things he’d said, and about the possibility that the day I met Stubs had been the day I’d been released by the people behind the apocalypse. Could it be true? Had they left me there and tricked me into believing that I was the real Ben Watanabe.
“Fucks with your head a little, doesn’t it?” asked my brother. “I can tell by the look in your eyes. That forlorn stare.” He gazed off in the same direction as me and made a sweeping gesture. “All your life, just a long series of lies. None of us were the same afterwards. You know, you’re the first one that didn’t end up making it all the way out to Jerald. The rest of us at least got within a mile of him before we were captured. Not you though. You never even got close. They must’ve been desperate and started sending out the trash after the best of us were lost.” He laughed and slapped at my back as if joking with me.
He got off of me, but kept his gun pointed down at me as I turned and sat up. He got a good look at me, and winced as he said, “Wow, Ben. You look like shit. What happened to you?”
“I’ve had a rough couple of days.”
I could see where I’d shot him. There was a rip on his left sleeve, and blood had stained his white coat. He followed my line of vision and said, “You nearly got me, you asshole. Shooting your own brother. It doesn’t get much lower than that.”
“Says the man with the gun.”
He appreciated the humor and shrugged. “Touché.”
“Jerald thought I was the real Ben,” I said, recalling how desperate the leader of the military had been to capture me several months earlier, when the Rollers were corralled into the church.
Ben rolled his eyes and shook his head. “He thought it was possible, but I knew it was bullshit. He wanted to catch you and test you to see if you were the real Ben. But if there was a real Ben, he probably died years ago. Think about it. Think about all the shit we survived. That trip all the way out here from Georgia, avoiding the nuclear zones.” That reminded him of something and he laughed with disdain before saying, “Want to hear something crazy? Those stories about the nuclear plants failing were bullshit. They lit up a few of them, but nothing like what people thought. If they had, we’d all be living through a fallout. They just cooked up those stories to force people to move where they wanted them. Man, you should hear some of the stuff they did. It was sick.”
“Then why are you working with them?” I asked.
“I’m not,” he said, as if I’d offended him. “I’m fighting them. That’s the reason I joined Jerald. Look, I know you’ve been spending time with the Sons of Reagan…”
“You mean the High Rollers?”
“Whatever they call themselves. You let them fuck with your head. They’re out here pulling their shit, running around causing trouble, but the only person actually fighting back is Jerald and the Wolf Pack. They’re the ones you should work with, not these fucking terrorists.”
I saw the flash of eyes in the woods behind him. Predators on the move.
It only happened for a moment, and then they were gone, lost again in the forest. The grey sky had started to darken as night approached, but we were still illuminated by the light coming from the camp behind us. That light had mo
mentarily flashed in the eyes of a dog that was moving through the dark, attracted by our gunshots. My brother was oblivious to their advance.
“How would Jerald have tested me?” I asked, eager to get an answer before we were attacked. If I lived through this, I wanted to know if I was a clone or not.
“It had something to do with a memory that the real Ben would have, but that they didn’t put into the clones because it would’ve been too dangerous for them to know.”
“What was it?” I asked as I watched the shapes of wolves begin to appear in the distance. “What was the memory?”
“Something about a red-haired girl…” He never finished his sentence.
The pack of wolves attacked, and my brother heard them as they leapt at his back. I was also a target, but at least I was prepared for them. The wolves were massive, but scrawny, victims of a long winter, and they wobbled as they walked, as if addled by some unknown ailment. I thought there were four of them, but more materialized from the woods around us, emerging from the inky darkness, and my brother was brought down quickly.
A beast lunged at me, but I caught it by the neck and threw it down at my feet. The wound on my arm ripped open, and I felt fresh blood trickle down my sleeve as I put my entire weight against the undead monster. My brother was screaming in pain as the wolves shredded him. They ignored me, more interested in the easy kill, and I saw my pistol laying in the snow a few feet away.
The wolf under me was kicking and biting, but he was trapped as I pushed down hard on his ribs. The creature looked more decayed than the coyotes I’d encountered earlier. His lips had rotted away, leaving him with a permanent snarl. His gums were blackened, and wet with his own blood. The animal’s tongue had been bitten off, and I wondered if it was by its own teeth as it continued to snap at me.
I pressed harder and felt the animal’s ribs snapping beneath me. A gush of fetid liquid spewed out of the animal’s mouth, and formed a pool beneath us. It was still alive, and tried to kick free, but I began to punch at its head until its skull cracked. When it was finally dead, I looked up to see if it was safe to go for the gun.
Most of the wolves were focused on their kill, but one had moved back to gnaw on a piece of meat that he’d torn away from the others. His maw was wet with my brother’s blood as he chewed at the meat, staring at me as he did. He was wavering in his stance, just slightly side to side, like a drunkard trying to feign sobriety.
I went for the gun, and the wolf growled at me. It was unlike any other animal noise I’d ever heard, deep and wet, as if the creature was ill instead of vicious. I picked up the gun and took careful aim before firing. The wolf’s body rolled backwards, its head split from the bullet, and its legs twitched as it died.
The rest of the pack looked up at me, strings of flesh hanging from their teeth, and I started firing into them, carefully picking them off one by one. The pack didn’t relent their assault on my brother in favor of survival. They had no fear of me or my gun, and no concern for the death of their brethren. When I got to the last of them, the animal barely paid me any mind as it gnawed at my brother’s exposed intestines. Its eyes just looked up at me as its maw stayed buried in its meal. I killed it and then looked at my pale doppelganger, his skin nearly as white as the snow, with flecks of red blood adding the only color to his cheeks.
He gasped, and his torso jerked, but that was all he could manage as he stared up at the snow falling down on us both. I knelt beside him and asked, “Was it Annie? Was the red-haired girl that Jerald talked about Annie?”
My brother choked, and blood leaked out from the corner of his mouth. His eyes never looked at me, but stayed focused on the sky above as the snow came to bury him.
34 – Prison Break
Celeste
I knew that I couldn’t take out all of the guards that were in the great room with the rest of the Dawns, but I had to do something. This could be my only chance to escape, and I had to take it.
I pulled the helmet off of the dead guard in my room, and looked at his lifeless expression. His mouth was open, and there was blood all over his chin from my attack. His blue eyes stared straight at me, almost as if he were alive, but they never moved as I took his helmet into the bathroom to wipe off the blood. I could only hope this would work.
The helmet was set in the sink, the bottom facing up, as I pressed the button on the side that would allow me to speak with the other guards.
“This is the Administrator. We have Undying in the…” I stumbled on my words, uncertain what to say. “We have Undying above the Dawn’s great room. You need to get the girls back to their rooms and ask them to stay there. Then get up here to help.”
It seemed reasonable, considering I knew that the creatures had gotten into that area at least once before. All I could do was wait to see if it worked, and hope no one came looking for the missing guard. I waited in my ready room with the rifle I’d stolen pointed at the door, prepared if this didn’t work.
I could hear the girls being ushered through the hall, all of them silently obeying, just as terrified as I had been before my first escape. This was a good sign, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. The guards would realize they’d been duped, and would come looking for their friend.
I listened until I thought it was safe, and then creaked the door open. The hallway was empty, and I hurried to close the door that led to the great room. I started opening the doors to the other Dawns rooms and yelling in at them to come out into the hall. I didn’t wait for anyone to obey me, and continued down the hall, opening doors as I went, and crying out, “Hurry! Come out into the hall.”
Elise was the first to do as I asked. “Cobra?”
“No,” I said as I smiled in greeting. “Call me Celeste.”
“What? What’s going on?”
“Help me get the others out.”
“Why? What’s happening?” she asked as she ran alongside me.
“This is it. We’re getting out.”
She nodded, and I could see a glimmer of excitement in her eyes.
We gathered the Dawns, although several of the girls were too scared to come out of their rooms. The ones that dared to disobey the orders of the guards were gathered around me as I stepped up onto the stoop of one of the rooms, raising me slightly higher.
“Dawns, listen to me. You’ve probably heard from Elise that Hailey and I were quarantined because we got sick. That’s not the truth.”
They murmured, uncertain what to think.
“The day that man fell from the ceiling we discovered the truth about this place. We’re not here because we’re being trained to live on the surface, or to get any sort of surface status. We’re prisoners here.”
Other girls had begun to peer out from their rooms, cautiously listening to me as I went on.
“The surface they told you about is a lie. I know, because I’ve been there.”
This earned disbelief from many of them that they expressed with dismissive groans.
“It’s true. Hailey and I made it to the surface, but they captured me and brought me back. And they killed Hailey.”
The girls didn’t believe me.
“And they’ll kill all of you too. I don’t know what they have planned for us, but I can promise you that you’re not going to end up in a paradise on the surface.”
“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” asked Emery Dawn, one of the red-haired girls.
“I can prove it.”
“How?” asked Elise, eager to hear.
“Hailey and I escaped through hallways that we found behind the walls.” Again, the Dawns murmured in disbelief. “We got through the mirror in my ready room, and if you’re willing to go with me, I can take you to the surface. If we all fight back, they can’t stop us. Right now I’m giving you the choice, either come with me or stay a prisoner locked down in this dungeon. The choice is yours, but I promise you this is the only chance you’ll have to escape.”
“You still have to prove it,” sa
id Emery, and the rest of the Dawns agreed with her.
“Okay, I will. Come with me.” I opened the door to the room beside me. I wasn’t sure which Dawn’s room this was as I climbed up onto the counter of the ready room. I slung the rifle over my shoulder and said, “Elise, come help me.” She climbed up, and I showed them all how the top of the mirror wasn’t attached to the wall. We pried it off, just as Hailey and I had done months earlier.
The Dawns gasped at the revelation that there was a hallway behind it.
“They’ve been watching us?” asked one of the girls as she noticed that the mirror was one-sided.
“Yes,” I said loudly. “We’re nothing more than experiments to them. They study us like some sort of animal. But not me. Not anymore.” I climbed through the hole and then yelled back at them, “Come with me, and I’ll take you to the surface.”
I don’t know if all of the Dawns followed me, but most of them did. We flooded those thin, grey halls, and I told them about the day Hailey and I escaped. Elise stayed close behind me, listening intently as I led on.
A pang of heartache stung me as I thought of Hailey and me sneaking through this same passage. I stole a moment to close my eyes and cherish a memory, and it strengthened my resolve. This was what I had to do. I was leading the Dawns to freedom, and if it hadn’t been for my lost love, this day would’ve never happened. It had been Hailey that inspired me to escape, and it was her courage, not mine, that prompted us to tear down that false mirror and enter these grey halls hidden behind the walls.
I led them to the door that opened into the room filled with computers. I knew there were stairs just past here that would lead up, but what lay between was uncertain. It could be that I was leading us all to our deaths.
Just one way to find out.
I spun the handle that opened the door, and walked out to discover the body of an Administrator laying on the floor in a pool of blood. Elise gasped as she came from behind, and the other girls struggled to see, each of them gasping in turn upon the revelation.